Study: Manufacturing tax credit added 21,000 jobs

Submitted by rkothari on Thu, 04/20/2017 - 8:35am

Wisconsin’s manufacturing and agriculture tax credit accounted for almost 21,000 new manufacturing jobs since implementation started in 2013, according to a new study from University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Noah Williams.

The study also concluded the tax credit accounted for 42,000 total jobs throughout the state.

Williams, who also served as an informal adviser to Gov. Scott Walker’s presidential campaign, suggests manufacturing employment would have fallen in the state without the tax credit and previous efforts to gauge the impact of the policy using only statewide job data failed to account for other factors.

“As an economist, I will leave the policy decisions to the Legislature and the governor. However, my research suggests that this policy has helped create substantial job growth in Wisconsin,” Williams said.

The analysis, released through the Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy, looked at job data in Wisconsin counties bordering other states to help isolate the impact of the tax credit before working toward a statewide estimate. Agricultural jobs were not included because of a lack of data at the county level.